Aircooled VW South Africa

We have no name for it yet, so for now it's just "The Splitty"

Story till now: we heard through a friend that there was a splitty sitting in this dude's yard gathering rust.
We went and had a look at it, at night.....First mistake heheh. Looked alright. We were taken by the nice interior, the fact that the engine started fekking easy and the pretty decent paint. I went and had another look and decided f#Ck it....we buy it. We got the price of R20k.....And seeing busses for sale in the UK for upwards of 14kPounds (for rusty ones) we thought why not.

The brakes didnt work at all though. pedal goes straight to the floor. So we fetched it on a Piggyback and towed it straight to Tony's shop, Volksworx in town.



Anyhow it spent about a week there and I got a call......Basically it went like " Ah man....And it looked so nice from the outside! *laughter*"

So I was STRESSED!!
Besides the breaks (which we are gonna replace fully basically, all new wheel cylinders (6 of em) a bit of new brake line and the master cylinder. We're busy getting parts for this now. Tony is letting us buy our own parts which is REALLY cool and saves us some cash.

Anyhow I went past today and had a look at the rot. Basically both rocker panels are f#Ck up. Seems like theyre made of body filler. Some chassis bits and the Floor are also pretty Dodge. I spoke to tony's body guy also and i was getting more and more stressed looking at all the shit....eventually I asked him how much he'd charge to make 1 side rocker panel...not install....make from sheetmetal. I was expecing like 10k or something stupid...but he said R1000 a panel, which is fine!!! So I feel a bit better. If we do it bit by bit then we should be able to handle it.

At this point we are gonna ask tony's body guy for a quote on fixing the chassis bits and making a new floor....Just to get it safe for now so it can drive and not break into two.

Some pics:
right, this is on the passenger side (which is the worst side) looking towards the nose. Can see the damaged cross member around the heater tube. Incidentally i found a weld in replacement part on the net....15 pounds so thats not so bad. Similar prices for most oif the chassis bits....so Im tempted to import bits.


Passenger side rocker. Uhm...need I say more.

u can see the trestle is busy breaking it more hehe

This is the other end of that rocker, an outter chassis bit....they all look more or less like this.

Then the middle section of that member is also FARKED!!! Total hole, other side is starting too.


Passenger footwell rot. Can see the ro in the wheelarch also


Here you can see that damged front crossmember again. No idea how that happened.


More dodgy outter chassis bits. Are these outriggers?


Other rocker...can see its all dodgy....probably loads of filler and shit


Dodgy roofline...inside is rusty too in the same spots




So there we have it. It's gonna be a lot of work but after thinking about this all afternoon I think we'll be ok. We really have some great guys working on it. Tony is clearly a serious aircooled enthusiast and has a bunch of beetles and stuff he has worked on. His body guy Kobie seems to be pretty legit too. I'd love Barry to look at it too and give advise but Im super scared he will tell us to :gfa: and possibly hit me


Here ends the lecture.

splitbusahollic wrote:also have a look at klassicfab panels...
good luck with your resto !

Roadhawg wrote:ARG!!!

Still waiting for brake parts Im worried the shop is gonna start charging for storage. The wait is killing me.

How can nobody in the country have wheelcylinders for one of these things?

flatfourfan wrote:

Roadhawg wrote:ARG!!!

Still waiting for brake parts Im worried the shop is gonna start charging for storage. The wait is killing me.

How can nobody in the country have wheelcylinders for one of these things?

I remember picking up a few wheel cylinders and rebuild kits from autoquip and midas.........give the autozone store in klerksdorp a try (phonebook) and they do deliver. I got 2 fronts from them about a year ago for a 59 kombi that we were working on.

Blitzkrieg wrote:Patience guys.....Not like sourcing parts for a waterpumper where everything is available over the counter instantly

Golfmad wrote: Still a long way from done, still need to paint, have to make a booking with Dirk to sort the wiring out once and for all.....